My mind is constantly running…this is my way of organizing my thoughts!

Riley’s Birthday- the celebration!

So you’ve seen the decorations, and you’ve seen the activities, so now I’ll tell you how the evening played out…

We chose to do Riley’s party on a Friday night because that way we could still have the majority of our weekend free. If we had it on a Saturday afternoon, I would have spent all of Friday night and all of Saturday getting ready for it. Sometimes I need to set limits for myself….and having a party on a Friday after work definitely gives me a time limit!

I did have someone come over and help with the daycare that day so I could finish getting the decorations made and get everything together. After work it was still a scramble to make the frosting, tint it and fill the pastry bags, get the pizzas in the oven, the tables set and decorated, all the decorations in place, etc. But we made it!

The girls started showing up just before 5:30pm. We let them play for a bit, get their stuff set up for the slumber party, then around 5:45 we gathered the girls in the front room and started the jewelry project. The girls all brought their boxes of goodies up to the table and two at a time the girls would watch as Sarah and I glued their pictures on- the rest of the girls played and waited for us to call them in. Lots of giggling and screaming, that’s for sure! They tried crawling under the table, around our legs, running around the room. I told my sister, “they’re louder than the daycare!”. Yikes.

When Sarah and I were done, we gathered everyone together again to eat pizza. We offered Sprite and Dr Pepper as beverage choices, each girl grabbing a pink cup and writing their name on it. Jim manned the drink station, pouring soda into their cups. Sarah and I handed out slices of pizza.

Dinner conversation was quite interesting- girls talking about crushes, and Justin Bieber, and singing the “K-I-S-S-I-N-G” song with an added verse that none of us adults had ever heard before. It was really a hysterical moment.

We let the two girls who finished first decide what was next….. cupcakes or presents…..and they chose cupcakes. So as soon as the table was cleared from dinner we set up the cupcake decorating area at one end of the table. The girls were completely on their own for this one- all we did was put the cupcake in the box for them! And clean up between shifts. We figured a group of 5 at a time was probably the most we would want to do and it seemed to work perfectly.

The only hitch was that I meant for them to set aside the cupcake they were going to eat- so we could all eat them as a group. But it was too late- they started eating them before I could say anything. Oh well.

After Riley was done decorating hers, we called the group back together and sang Happy Birthday to her.

When that was done the girls played some more while we cleaned the table. During all this time we had 99.5 The Wolf on the radio, and whenever “Stuck Like Glue” came on, Jim would crank the volume up and the girls would all come running in to dance.

I captured some video (hopefully I don’t embarass Jim too much):

Sarah and I would check on the jewelry every now and then, applying additional coats of sealant or diamond glaze, etc.

Present time- we took the opportunity to snap a group shot:

Riley was being too shy to sit with her friends for the group picture…silly girl. She received several cute and interesting items and Barbies, which quickly made their way to the playroom where the majority of the girls were playing.

Then the girls found the ice-maker and started getting cups full of ice. One girl got a big ice cube stuck to her lip and pulled it off- removing a layer of skin and resulting in a bloody lip. That was the talk of the evening…and the next morning, too!

By 10pm we figured the sugar crash should be hitting, so the girls all set up their sleeping bags in the playroom to settle down and watch a movie.

At 10:30 the movie was started over because girls were complaining that everyone else was talking too much and they missed it. At 10:45 it was restarted again. And “that was the last time” I told them!

Jim and I tried going to bed….he can sleep through a lot more than I can. Every time I’d just about be asleep, the girls would start giggling or screaming and I’d be wide awake again. They were all brushing their teeth at midnight- for the second time.

I went in every 1/2 hour telling them, “I don’t care if you guys stay awake, but you HAVE to be QUIET. Whisper. Please whisper. No screaming. No talking. Whissssssperrrrr.” to no avail.

Finally at one o’clock in the morning I lost it. Told them I was done. No more. I’m not doing a slumber party again. I’m disappointed at the lack of respect you girls are showing. I’ve asked you a number of times to WHISPER! Party is over. I don’t want to hear a peep. Riley was sent to her room. And they were quiet.

Actually, I let Riley go back. I went in and talked to her, told her that this is HER house and she can help influence the girls by asking them to quiet down. She should be a leader, not a follower. I don’t know what was said among the group after all that- they were quiet the rest of the night.

So back to bed I went….it was 1:15 or maybe even later when I fell back asleep, vowing to NEVER do a large-scale girls slumber party again. Ha!

The next morning I was up at 6am. I needed to finish some of the jewelry, make coffee for Jim and I, and get the blueberry pancakes ready for the girls to eat when they got up. They were all up around 7-7:30, we had breakfast, and that left them enough time to play a bit more before their parents came to pick them up at 9:00.

And that’s pretty much how it went. Lots of screaming, running, taunting others about their crushes, “Justin Bieber and Zac Efron are so cute”, and blah blah blah.

I’m still cracking up about the second toothbrushing at midnight…still not sure what that was all about.

One thought on “Riley’s Birthday- the celebration!”

What a party, couldn’t help but wonder how many hours you put into all the prep and then the party. I am sure Riley will always remember her 8th birthday. Next year you might just take her to McDonalds.